The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly to power demand reduction system for an information handling system.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option is an information handling system (IHS). An IHS generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements may vary between different applications, IHSs may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in IHSs allow for IHSs to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, IHSs may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
The power requirements of IHSs are steadily increasing. For example, as processors have added cores and other processing features, the sustainable power requirements, dynamic power requirements, and peak power requirements of the power system have increased. Traditionally, processor thermal design power (TDP) has been used for (indefinitely) sustainable power requirement budgeting purposes, and only a small amount of additional power was budgeted for dynamic power requirements and peak power requirements that are above the TDP of the processor. However, as the number of processor cores has increased (from 1, to 2, to 4, to 8, and to 10 and higher), the ability of all cores to simultaneously transition from an idle state to an active state has driven the dynamic power requirements and peak power requirements rapidly relative to the sustainable power requirements. For example, maximum or peak power (“Pmax”, typically sustainable on the order of milliseconds to tens of milliseconds) has grown from 1.3×TDP, to 1.6×TDP, and up to 2.2×TDP, and dynamic power (“Pdyn”, typically sustainable on the order of hundreds of milliseconds to seconds) has grown from 1.0×TDP, to 1.2×TDP, to 1.6×TDP for some processors in the last 5 years. Processor cores and other computing elements can activate on the order of nanoseconds, which is orders of magnitude faster than conventional monitoring and throttling mechanisms can respond, and which can introduce a large power demand spike on the power system (e.g., greater than 200 amps.)
As the number of processors and other high-power devices in the system grows, it becomes less and less feasible to budget the power system based on theoretical dynamic power requirements and peak power requirements, as those theoretical requirements drive excessive power systems that are costly, inefficient, and difficult (if not impossible) to implement.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an improved power system.